Buoyancy Tips...

[Oregon Duck]

Sounds like everyone does it a bit differently.

My PADI DI suggested (as apparently is their method) to avoid using my BC and rely on my drysuit for maintaining neutral buoyancy. But Rick's suggestion that the drysuit is serving a separate purpose from buoyancy control (aside from redundancy) from the BC makes sense to me. I suppose I will continue to work with both methods alternately until I become comfortable with one. And yes, I do plan to purchase a steel tank or two in the next 6 months which should allow me to shed some of that belt weight. PADI teaches feet first descent but I also prefer horizontal - and so does my drysuit.

Thanks for the tips.

 

[Charlie99]

The dive boat ppl told me that it's common for schools to overweight their students. Does it sound like I'm overweighting?

The only way to really know is to check it. If your tank is near empty, then go up to 10' or 15' depth and empty all of the air out of your BCD. You should rise when your breathe in and sink when you breathe out. If you are signficantly overweighted, then you will sink with all of the air out of your BCD.

With regard to lung volume changing buoyancy. Occassionally, if I saw myself getting too close to the coral, I'd take a breath and hold it for a second or two (not longer than that) until I rose a little and then breathe normally. Is that considered "holding one's breath" as a no-no?

There is a huge difference between closing one's airway, and pausing your breathing while keeping the airway open. Closing your airway is dangerous. Not everyone is has conscious airway control. A couple simple examples you can try while sitting right there in front of your computer. Take a big breath and hold it like you did while diving. Now put your fist on your bellybutton and push in -- if this forces out air, then you were probably pausing your breathing using your chest muscles, which is not a problem. If when you pushed on your stomach no air came out, you probably had closed your airway by closing your glottis or epiglottis -- that do-hicky at the back of your throat that closes just before you unleash a cough. Closing your airway is the big no-no, particularly if ascending.

 

[paradicio]

Thanks for the tips everyone! Last night I had my last pool dive and, as we finished our final skills rather quickly, I was able to work on my buoyancy a bit. Finally, at the end of the dive, I was able to find my zen spot. Unfortunately I did so as I was swimming towards the ladder to get out of the pool... Hopefully I'll be able to find it earlier in Catalina on the 22nd!

 

[ehuber]

...like a pilot makes: Small Corrections

 

[lambsfarm 13]

youll get it. small squirts on that inflator button. controlled breathing helps too. when you inhale dont use all your lung volume. lung volume is a large part of it, after all you are inflating & deflating 2 balloons under water! smaller breathes equals more time too. relax, try not to think about it too much, itll come.-

 

[Charlie99]

when you inhale dont use all your lung volume. lung volume is a large part of it, after all you are inflating & deflating 2 balloons under water! smaller breathes equals more time too.

If find the opposite. Smaller breaths means more rebreathing of CO2 from the dead space in the throat and windpipe. Deeper breathing is more efficient, even though it changes your buoyancy more.

Even with very deep breathing you can still adjust your average buoyancy over each breathing cycle by just changing the amount of time you spend with nearly full lungs vs. the time spent with your lungs more towards empty. In other words, I don't change the depth of my breathing, but instead change the pattern to adjust buoyancy.

 

[lambsfarm 13]

damm, i shouldve said that! controlled breathing, that sounds better. otherwise with all that deep breathing a tank aint going to last long

 

[DumagueteGuy]

I had a lot of problems with bouancy during my confined dives, but once I got in the ocean and a little further down i didnt have the same issues.

 

[String]

Buoyancy is always harder in the shallows. Unfortunately they're also where changes are most critical for offgassing purposes and every dive you do you need to pass through that shallow area.

Being able to control buoyancy at 10m is all very well but its at the 3-5m range you really need to have it nailed to control stops etc.

Therefore, mastering it in the pool or shallow confined is preferable than just doing it deeper.

 

[Hinalo]

I have some similar concerns. Wearing a 7mm two-piece wetsuit, hood, gloves, booties, etc for cold water (Al 80), I started out my first Monterey dive yesterday with 36 lb between my BC and weight belt. I couldn't descend. I added 4 lb to make it 40 and still couldnt descend even with no air in my lungs. I used a reference line to pull myself down to about 20 feet. At that depth I had no trouble controlling bouyancy and was able to glide just off the bottom, make small adjustments, go up a few feet, down a few. just using breath control. On ascent I was able to control using breath and dumping from BC to go up properly.

So my problem was that I was fine once I got to a small depth (20 ft) but the initial dsecent eluded me. This was weird feeling; I have had no problems descending in tropical water with a 3mm suit and only 16 lb.

On dive 2 I added two pounds and at 42 lb I still couldn't descend without the reference line, but felt heavy at 20 feet.

All you people who wear heavy wetsuits, how do you free descend while keeping your weight down so you're not dragging at depth?